The mounting of various equipment, such as airborne radar antenna and other airborne sensors, onto an aircraft fuselage has various advantages, especially for airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. For example, by virtue of the aircraft's ability to attain high altitudes, relatively large ground surface areas and/or airspace volume may be monitored by the airborne sensor equipment.
The mounting of airborne equipment onto an upper portion of an aircraft fuselage is in and of itself well known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,745,981 to Rainer et al (the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein) provides a conventional means to mount a sensor pod onto an aircraft fuselage. According to this prior proposal, the sensor pod is an elongate structure having front and rear ends positioned above the fuselage. Structural supports are provided which include a first end coupled to the fuselage of the aircraft and second end coupled to the sensor pod at the front and rear, respectively. One drawback to such a proposed sensor pod installation is that it can be limited in terms of aerodynamic requirements, aircraft drag limits, antenna radar weight, aircraft loads structural strength, and in terms of the incorporation of other radar antennas. Moreover conventional sensor pod attachments do not provide versatility in mounting of various different types of airborne sensor pods and associated sensors.
It is therefore towards providing solutions to such problems that the embodiments of the present invention are directed.